Most Popular San Gabriel Valley

Frozen raccoons discovered in a Temple City market may have originated in Florida, officials said. After receiving a complaint about the sale of whole raccoons at Metro Supermarket at 4819 Temple City Blvd.

PASADENA >> Police will brief the City Council on Monday about a spate of recent violence occurring at or near parks throughout the community. Within the last two weeks, police have responded to four shootings, three of which occurred in city parks.

MONROVIA — A 10-year-old boy suffered a head injury and four other people were hurt Friday when a driver leaving a self-serve carwash lost control of his car and stuck four other vehicles, police said.

LOS ANGELES – In another blow to trash hauler Athens Services, a state appellate court Friday upheld a decision voiding the controversial contract the Montebello City Council awarded to the firm in 2008.

ARCADIA >> Tensions ran high at the Arcadia City Council meeting where officials denied a homeowners association’s appeal that aimed to halt development plans for two large homes despite residents’ pleas to “save The Highlands.

ALTADENA >> A 22-year-old man beat and repeatedly stabbed his 77-year-old grandmother at an Altadena home late Friday, leaving her severely wounded at a hospital, officials said. Deputies arrested Alexander Touloudjian at the scene without a struggle and booked him on suspicion of attempted murder, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials and county booking records.

ARCADIA - A man died Tuesday when he was thrown off his motorcycle after colliding with two vehicles on the westbound 210 Freeway, west of Huntington Drive. The crash shut down three westbound lanes for an hour and a half.

DUARTE >> Deputies are seeking half-a-dozen suspected Mongols motorcycle club members in connection with the beating and stabbing of a man outside a Duarte bar late Friday. The victim, a 37-year-old man, was hospitalized in stable condition following the alleged attack, which took place shortly after 11:30 p.

PASADENA >> The North American debut of Shaun White’s Air+Style extreme sports and music festival at the Rose Bowl on Saturday offered an eclectic mix of activities and attractions to delight the senses of guests.

At an Eagle Rock home are hives filled with thousands of bees that might have died had it not been for a passionate beekeeper who is getting help from a local fire chief. These hives, and hundreds of others have been rescued and will eventually be welcomed into backyards and on rooftops in Southland cities where beekeeping is legal.

PASADENA >> Health Department officials have confirmed four cases of measles in Pasadena since the recent outbreak of the infectious disease, the city announced. The outbreak began in December when at least 40 people at Disneyland contracted the highly contagious disease.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is investigating whether raccoon meat sold by at least two Asian markets is safe to eat. The county was alerted late Tuesday that Metro Super Market at 4819 Temple City Blvd.

PASADENA - A 17-year-old Altadena girl got away from a man who tried to kidnap her Monday night, police said. Lt. Kelly Evans said the teen was walking east on Ashtabula Street around 11:10 p.m. when a car stopped in front of her.

Authorities on Monday identified the driver killed in a weekend solo crash as a 24-year-old Alhambra resident. Robert Philipp Sweeney died at 4:41 a.m. Sunday at Huntington Hospital, according to Ed Winter, assistant chief of operations and investigations for the County of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.

PASADENA>> The city has filed an insurance claim to recoup $5.9 million that was allegedly embezzled from a City Hall fund aimed at beautifying city streets, documents show. The city filed a claim with its insurance provider AIG to recover $5,959,710.

ALHAMBRA >> An officer searching a car for marijuana on Thursday got a surprise when he opened the trunk and came face to face with a dog. Next to the black-and-white terrier mix was an unloaded shotgun.

PASADENA >> Nurses at Huntington Memorial are getting ready to vote on forming a union at the hospital, with organizers planning a rally Thursday morning outside the facility. The nurses, working with the California Nurses Association, are planning to hold an election in the next few weeks on whether or not they will be unionized, organizers said.

PASADENA>> The six candidates vying to be Pasadena’s next mayor answered questions from schoolchildren and audience members Wednesday night in a packed McKinley School auditorium. Candidates Allen Shay, Don Morgan, Terry Tornek, Bill Thomson, Jacque Robinson and Jason Hardin largely agreed on many of the topics discussed at the Pasadena Star-News-sponsored forum ranging from education, growth, traffic and public safety.

A year before last month’s teacher/student sex scandals unsettled the South Hills High community, officials in the same school district put together a secret agreement that allowed a coach convicted of theft to keep his teaching credential and resign with little punishment, according to documents obtained by this news organization.

LA PUENTE>> Guns N’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum kept a steady beat as the band performed a rousing rendition of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The famous rocker was jamming with students at Santana Alternative High School.

Goodbye horse, hello Year of the Ram. To kick off the Chinese New Year, the City of San Gabriel is putting a “modern” twist on an ancient tradition when it hosts its inaugural Lunar New Year Festival, which officials expect to bring 10,000 people to the historic Mission District Sunday.

As measles cases continue to climb, legislation introduced Wednesday by two state senators would mean no California parent could refuse to vaccinate a child unless there is a medical complication or a religious exemption.

Detectives suspect a former Catholic school music teacher and choir director of molesting a female student 12 years ago while working at a South El Monte Catholic school, officials said. Investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau jailed Elohim D’Leon, 43, of El Monte Thursday afternoon on suspicion of 10 counts of committing lewd acts on a child younger than 14 years old, according to sheriff’s officials county booking records.

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority has asked for a transfer of $33 million in sales-tax funds to jump-start plans and prepare bids for its next project, a 12.3-mile extension from Azusa to Montclair.

MONROVIA - Firefighters on Wednesday freed a tree trimmer who was stuck 75 feet up a palm tree and dangling upside down. The rescue took place shortly after 10 a.m. in the 200 block of West Atara Street which is in the unincorporated county area near Monrovia.

A Rosemead temple is once again inviting the community to share in its massive display of Buddhist artifacts during a public viewing this month, including newly acquired relics of a monk who famously burned himself alive to protest the South Vietnamese government in 1963.

PASADENA >> After a lengthy debate over whether or not homeowners, hikers, dog walkers and archers can coexist around the Lower Arroyo, the City Council Monday night decided a seven-acre archery range could be the exclusive domain of archers.

West Covina might need to choose between a strip club and the popular Cuban restaurant Porto’s Bakery & Cafe. Those are the options on the table for the Crazy Horse property between West Covina’s family-friendly mall and city hall.

ARCADIA >> Detectives seeking a missing 13-year-old Arcadia boy who disappeared after school Friday afternoon found him safe Saturday in Temple City, authorities said. The grandmother of the boy dropped him off about 8 a.

PICO RIVERA >> A federal drug trafficking and money laundering probe centers on a Pico Rivera nightclub with a long history of parking-lot gun battles and assaults, court documents obtained by this news organization show.

MONROVIA >> Two young people — Brandon Lee, 19, and Sammantha Salas, 16 — killed three days apart. Two families. One common goal. End the senseless violence, their parents begged the community, calling attention to the multiple killings in 2007 and 2008.

Southern Californians used 23 percent less water in December compared with the year before, the most water saved since the state declared a drought emergency last June, according to data released Tuesday by the State Water Resources Board.

The Orange County District Attorney charged two South Hills High School teachers Wednesday with a misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly providing five male students with alcohol during an unauthorized camping trip to San Clemente Beach.

PASADENA >> The race to replace Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard has been highly contested among six candidates as the voters will chose the city’s first new mayor in 16 years. The candidates in the March 10 primary as they appear on the ballot are: Allen Shay, Don Morgan, Terry Tornek, Bill Thomson, Jacque Robinson and Jason Hardin.

PASADENA >> A woman suffered injuries and a second woman was being sought as a suspect after an argument escalated into a stabbing Wednesday afternoon, police said. The stabbing took place just after 1:50 p.

A 26-year-old suspected car thief is hospitalized in critical condition after allegedly trying to kill herself while in Pasadena jail over the weekend, officials said. Pasadena Police Lt. Tracey Ibarra said because an injury occurred inside a city facility, the department is conducting an investigation.

Verizon Communications Inc. plans to “sharpen its strategic focus” by selling part of its wireline operations and leasing more than 11,000 of its towers in a move that will net the company more than $15 billion.

AZUSA >> Juliana Lyons is usually one of the first to hear when her friends have good news. The 19-year-old spent four years as part of John Burroughs High School’s nationally renowned show choir in Burbank, but instead of falling prey to the nastiness of competition, Lyons kept a positive outlook and spread it among her peers.

Two Chinese companies each made donations of $10,000 to the city of Arcadia, which several city officials and employees might use for business travel to China and Taiwan in hopes of fostering sister-city relationships, officials said.

BALDWIN PARK >> A Baldwin Park man kidnapped his former girlfriend, stabbed her then killed himself Thursday, authorities said. Kenneth Williams, 31, was found dead in his garage in the 4700 block of Maine Avenue shortly before 5:30 p.

Police arrested a female Regional Occupational Program teacher who has worked on more than a dozen films and TV shows including “Apollo 13” and “The Godfather III” on Thursday on suspicion of having sex with a male Gladstone High School student, officials announced Friday afternoon.

Too much time has passed to prosecute Irwindale Mayor Mark Breceda and former City Councilwoman Rosemary Ramirez Thursday on charges of misappropriation of public funds and conflict of interest, a judge ruled Thursday.

For young black men, life in Los Angeles County in the past decade was far more dangerous than living in the murder capital of the world. Some years, the homicide rate for black teens and young black men here was twice that of Honduras — infamous for having more murders per capita than any other country.

On its face, the slaying of Robert Craig Neal, a 28-year-old black barber and father of five, should be an easier case for police to solve. Neal was not a gang member and when he was shot outside his Pasadena shop on the evening of Sept.

The Metropolitan Water District, the agency that supplies the bulk of the water for Southern California, is considering water rationing by summer unless statewide drought conditions radically improve, the agency announced Monday.